


The Sneetches and Other Stories

by listerinezero



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Mansion Fic, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 08:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/listerinezero/pseuds/listerinezero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles always wondered what it would take to change Erik's mind. It turned out, it took Erik discovering he was pregnant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).



> A pair of Erik mpreg stories for **unforgotten** on her birthday! I wrote two and couldn't decide which one I liked better, so here's both, lol. All unforgotten wants in this world is more Erik mpreg stories, and since she's been such a good friend, I had to write some for her birthday.
> 
> Happy birthday, unforgotten! ♥♥
> 
> And thank you to turtletotem, for helping me brainstorm!

It turned out that Erik’s cycle was more than twice as long as the average woman’s, and until they met another man with the mutation, they wouldn’t know if that was typical for a male reproductive system or if it was just the way Erik’s body worked. Either way, it was a double-edged sword: he had a longer fertile period, but it was also a longer wait to find out if he’d gotten pregnant or if they’d have to try again. They’d been trying for more than eight months now.

Charles was grading papers in bed - their school was growing rapidly, as was the stack of homework he had to review every night - but he set the work down and watched as Erik paced their bedroom, thermometer in his mouth. They’d been having sex for what felt like every spare moment for the past two weeks, and Erik was trying to decide whether he was still fertile or if they could take the night off and get some sleep. Erik was leaving for a recruiting trip in the morning and Charles had a meeting with the Department of Education; they both needed their rest.

“Well?” Charles asked when Erik took the thermometer out of his mouth. “What’s the verdict?”

Erik frowned at it, sighed, and put the thermometer back on top of his dresser, where he’d been keeping it these past months. After a moment’s hesitation, he muttered, “Let me just make sure,” and ducked into their bathroom, where Charles knew he’d be testing his fertility in a slightly more invasive way than just sticking a thermometer under his tongue.

They hadn’t gone through any of this to have Anya. Of course, they hadn’t been trying to have Anya; they hadn’t even known it was possible.

Erik returned from the bathroom a few minutes later and said, “Well, you can go back to grading papers. Chances are it’s not going to happen tonight.”

“We could give it a go anyway. You never know.”

A smirk creeped over Erik’s face. “Just because sheer dumb luck worked last time doesn’t mean it will again, especially considering I’m five years older than I was.”

Charles didn’t think luck had anything to do with it the last time - they’d had sex almost every single day from the time Charles pulled Erik out of the water to that day on the beach, and nine times out of ten Charles was the penetrating partner. He also suspected that their three week recruitment road trip might have coincided with Erik’s fertility calendar. The timing was fortuitous, but even so, that wasn’t luck: that was persistence.

Charles hoisted himself up into a sitting position in the bed and in his cheekiest voice, told Erik, “Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I just want you tonight.”

That made Erik laugh. “Is that so?” He patted his belly, which hadn’t been flat since Anya. “Can’t get enough of this?”

Before Charles could respond, he felt Anya's sniffling pouting presence just on the other side of the door. Charles could feel her and find her as easily as he could his own hand, but it was beginning to occur to him that they ought to teach her to knock. She took it for granted that Charles would know she was there and invite her in, and that the door would just open - because Erik would open the door for her without lifting a finger.

“Come in, darling,” Charles called, and Erik opened the door from across the room.

Anya stood on the other side in her pink pajamas, her stuffed bunny in her arms. Her eyes were welled with tears and her bottom lip was out about as far as it could go, but she wasn’t crying, not really. Just pouting.

“What’s the matter?” asked Charles.

“It’s too cold and I can’t sleep,” she whined, shuffling over towards the bed.

“Well, it’s nice and warm in here,” said Charles. “Why don’t you go pick out a book and we can read it together, okay?”

Suddenly the tears disappeared. “Okay!” she said, and ran back to her room to find a book.

Across the room, Erik shook his head. “You’re coddling her.”

Lately Erik had taken to accusing Charles of still treating her like a baby. But Anya was still only just four, Charles would protest. She wasn’t a baby anymore, but she wasn’t quite a kid yet, either.

“I like reading with her,” Charles replied. “And so do you.”

Erik made no response; instead he continued putting his clothes away and getting ready for bed.

Anya ran back in a moment later, clutching two books close to her chest, and clambered up onto the bed, carefully avoiding Charles legs as she snuggled in beside him.

“All right,” said Charles, pulling her in close and tucking her in under the blanket. “What have we here?” It was a pair of Dr. Seuss books: _The Sneetches and Other Stories_ and _The Cat in the Hat_. They had read these so many times Anya could recite them, but still they were her favorite. She didn’t quite understand the full meanings of the stories, but she liked the words and the pictures, and that was enough for her.

“Sneetches first!” she said.

“Whatever you say, love.” Charles held the book with one hand, while his other rested on Anya’s shoulder, and began to read:

> Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars.  
>  The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars.  
>  Those stars weren’t so big. They were really so small.  
>  You might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.
> 
> But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches  
>  Would brag, “We’re the best kind of Sneetch on the beaches.”  
>  With their snoots in the air, they would sniff and they’d snort  
>  “We’ll have nothing to do with the Plain-Belly sort!”  
>  And, whenever they met some, when they were out walking,  
>  They’d hike right on past them without even talking.

Erik listened as he brushed his teeth and washed his face, and by the time Charles was through with the Sneetches, he climbed into bed along with them.

Anya was sleepy now, her blue eyes drooping, but still she asked Erik to read the next one.

“Okay, baby girl, one more,” he said, and took the book from Charles. The next story was “The Zax,” a story of compromise, and Charles listened, with Anya cuddled against his chest, as Erik read aloud.

> One day, making tracks   
> In the prairie of Prax,  
> Came a North-Going Zax  
> And a South-Going Zax.  
>   
> And it happened that both of them came to a place  
> Where they bumped. There they stood.  
> Foot to foot. Face to face.  
>   
> "Look here, now!" the North-Going Zax said, "I say!  
> You are blocking my path. You are right in my way.  
> I'm a North-Going Zax and I always go north.  
> Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!"

Charles’ own eyes began drifting shut, feeling his daughter’s small chest rise with each breath, listening to Erik’s softly accented voice, telling the tale of two Zax who were too stubborn to budge even an inch to get out of each other’s way. Charles could remember wondering, when they first met, what it would take to get Erik to budge, what it would take to change Erik’s mind.

They found out a few months after Cuba: it took Erik discovering he had a mutation that would forever change his body and his life. It took him conceiving a child with another man, and being the one to carry the baby to term. It took nine months of hiding, rather than standing tall and proclaiming himself “Mutant and Proud,” because that was what he had to do to protect his unborn child. It took commandeering an entire hospital and telepathically manipulating them into performing a cesarean section on a man, and then wiping all of their memories afterwards. It took the biggest biological feat of mutant evolution to date, risking Erik’s own life and those of everyone else who’d helped him through it, and discovering that the result was a perfectly healthy, and perfectly human, baby girl. That was what it took to change Erik’s mind.

Because what did that mean, then, if such a dramatic mutation would produce a human? Erik would wonder. Charles was quick to remind Erik that the reverse was true, too: that the most dramatic mutations were born from humans.

“My parents were human,” Charles would say. “And so were yours. And other mutants will no doubt have human children, too.”

> "And I'll prove to YOU," yelled the South-Going Zax,  
> "That I can stand here in the prairie of Prax  
> For fifty-nine years! For I live by a rule  
> That I learned as a boy back in South-Going School.  
> Never budge! That's my rule. Never budge in the least!  
> Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east!  
> I'll stay here, not budging! I can and I will  
> If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!"  
>   
> Well...  
> Of course the world didn't stand still. The world grew.  
> In a couple of years, the new highway came through  
> And they built it right over those two stubborn Zax  
> And left them there, standing un-budge in their tracks.

Erik finished the story and looked over - Anya was asleep against Charles’ chest.

“Do you want to carry her back to bed?” Charles asked, running his hand over her soft brown hair.

“No.” Erik closed the book and set it on the nightstand, then turned out the lights with a wave of his hand. “She can stay here tonight.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Hank put his stethoscope to his blue ears and pressed the chest piece against Anya’s back. “All right, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Take a deep breath for me. Good. Again? Very good.”

Erik sat a few feet away, watching intently.

“You know, Erik,” Hank called to him as he scribbled some notes on a clipboard. “There’s no reason why you can’t take her to a local pediatrician.”

“It’s just a checkup. You can handle it.”

“Yes,” Hank conceded. “But as I’ve told you before, there are things that a real pediatrician can offer that I can’t. Actual training in pediatric medicine, for example. That might be helpful.”

Erik ignored that and continued watching as Hank looked in Anya’s eyes and ears and down her throat.

“Besides that, the more you use me as the school’s resident physician, the longer it will take me to complete the updates on the Danger Room you keep asking me for.”

Erik almost snapped that he had things to do, too, and that Hank can spare a few minutes to make sure Anya wasn’t in danger of immediate death, but he held his tongue. Anya didn’t need to hear that, and besides, Erik was fairly certain that the glare he was shooting Hank said all he needed to say.

Erik and Charles knew perfectly well that they couldn’t rely solely on Hank to be Anya’s doctor, but in the four years since Anya was born, they’d taken her to five different pediatricians, and Erik didn’t like any of them. Charles insisted that they were all fine doctors and that they’d take good care of her, but Erik wasn’t going to be fooled. He’d rather just let Hank look her over than put her in the hands of some stranger. Hank, at least, he trusted. Mostly.

Hank put down the otoscope and told Anya to lie back on the table. “I’m just going to touch your tummy to see if I can feel anything inside. I’m going to push on it a little, and it might feel a bit funny, but it won’t hurt. Is that okay?”

“Okay,” she said, her voice small and nervous. That made Erik stand - heavily - from his seat so he could stand beside her and hold her hand.

“Hank is not going to hurt you. I promise,” he told her.

“I know.”

And there was another good reason to let Hank perform Anya’s checkups: Anya liked him. She liked his fur.

After a minute’s prodding, Hank let Anya sit back up, her little legs dangling over the edge of the lab table. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Hank asked, and Anya shook her head. “All right, sweetheart, you’re all set.” He paused and turned to Erik. “Unless there’s anything your Papa wants me to check on before I let you go?”

Anya turned and looked up at Erik with big, pleading blue eyes - and even without the added telepathic oomph, the look was as powerful coming from her as it was from her dad.

“No,” said Erik with a defeated smile. “You’re done. You can go play.”

“Thank you!” she grinned, and held her hands in the air until Hank lifted her off the high table and set her back down on the ground. As soon as he let go, she was off and running back up the stairs and into the school, probably to find Kurt.

“So she’s all right?” Erik asked Hank.

Hank was scribbling his final few notes onto Anya’s chart. “She is a healthy, brilliant, beautiful four-year-old human girl. She’s just fine, as far as I can tell, but as I said before, I’m not a pediatrician.” He paused in his writing and looked up at Erik. “Have you decided whether or not you’re going to send her to the public school? If she goes to North Salem Elementary, she’s going to have to have certain vaccinations and check-ups done prior to enrollment, and I’m afraid I couldn’t do that for you. You’ll have to go to a real doctor for that. If you keep her in school here, I suppose then it becomes your decision, but I’d still recommend she get the current immunizations.”

Erik shook his head. “We don’t know where she’ll go to school yet. Charles and I are still fighting about it.”

Charles wanted her to go to North Salem Elementary. He thought it would be good for her to be around more children her own age and have a well-rounded education. Learning to socialize was as important as anything else taught at school, Charles said, and until they had more students, Anya would learn to play well with others better at North Salem Elementary than at the Xavier Lehnsherr Academy, no matter that her name was Xavier Lehnsherr. Erik thought it was absurd that Anya be excluded from their school, the one run by her parents in her own home, just because she was human.

How quickly their arguments had changed when Erik discovered that his baby girl wasn’t a mutant.

“You’ll have to pick a school soon,” Hank said. “She’s getting bigger every day.”

“I know,” Erik sighed.

“Speaking of which...” Hank nodded towards Erik’s growing belly. “You’re about six months along now? Is that right?”

“Six, maybe closer to seven.”

“And how are you feeling?”

Erik shrugged. “Fine, I guess. It’s less terrifying this time, now that I’ve already done it once. And it helps that Charles is so excited.” Erik ran a hand over his rounded midsection. Charles had been talking to it nonstop lately, which Erik found annoying, endearing, comforting, and bizarre all at the same time.

Hank began packing away his medical supplies. “And you, at least, are going to see a real doctor, right? A real obstetrician?”

Erik rolled his eyes. “Yes, Hank, I have another appointment for next Thursday.”

And by appointment, of course, he meant that he and Charles were planning to show up unannounced at the obstetrician’s office, where Charles would telepathically manipulate him into not thinking it’s strange that Erik is a pregnant man and then wipe the entire visit from his memory until they showed up again the next time. Obviously.

“Very good,” Hank said, and closed up his medical kit. “Do you need anything else?”

“No. Thank you, Doctor,” Erik said. “But I do still want that damn Danger Room update," he added with a wag of his finger. "You said it would be done two weeks ago.”

Hank sighed. “I’m working on it.”

“Good. Let me know when it’s finished.” And with that, Erik waddled out of the lab and back to work.


End file.
